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Akron
Beacon Journal...
After
bin
Laden
May 2, 2012
Would Mitt
Romney have ordered the commando raid that resulted in the killing of
Osama bin
Laden? The Obama White House has suggested that the former
Massachusetts
governor and Republican presidential candidate would not have given his
assent.
The speculation has been part of the campaign jockeying as today
approached,
one year since special forces descended on Abbottabad, Pakistan, and
left with
the body of the deceased al-Qaida mastermind aboard one of their
helicopters.
On Monday,
Romney insisted, “of course, of course,” he would have made the same
call. He
added that “even Jimmy Carter would have given that order,” a jab
linking to a
Democratic incumbent who failed to win re-election, in part, because he
appeared weak in projecting American power.
What
deserves attention is that Barack Obama did order the raid. It is part
of the
record on which his performance should be assessed.
In no small
way, the president fulfilled a campaign promise. He put the
intelligence
community on the trail of bin Laden, reorganizing the approach and
seizing the
opportunity when it surfaced. As Leon Panetta, the defense secretary,
indicated
over the weekend, the killing of bin Laden was not a “silver bullet.”
It did
advance the fight against terrorism, al-Qaida losing its founder and
leading
man, the American military and intelligence community reinforcing the
message
about their persistence and capacity to strike.
At one
point, Republicans faulted Bill Clinton for swatting loosely at bin
Laden and
other terrorists. Obama acted with precision, driven by effective
intelligence,
or the most valuable tool in the fight against terrorism. Precision has
been
part of the drone attacks, the one weapon bin Laden found most
disruptive of
his operations.
The
president has kept the heat on al-Qaida in ways that should please
Republicans,
deploying the necessary elements of war and law enforcement. That’s not
to say
the fight has been waged flawlessly. The drone strikes lack
accountability. The
president has bowed too easily to congressional opponents of civilian
trials
for terrorists and the closing of the Guantanamo prison.
A decade
later, Congress still hasn’t restructured its oversight of the
intelligence
community and the unwieldy Department of Homeland Security, in defiance
of the
Sept. 11 commission.
What the
president has sustained and improved from the Bush years is vigilance,
the
country keeping its guard up. That isn’t a guarantee against future
terrorist
strikes. It is the required posture for keeping pace with evolving
terrorist
networks. The killing of Osama bin Laden opened a new chapter,
coinciding with
the Arab Spring, the premium all the more on keen intelligence and a
nimble
response, in diplomacy, too.
How to
strike an appropriate balance in the post bin Laden era? Now that’s a
question
worth attention in the presidential race.
Read this
and other articles at the Akron Beacon Journal
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